CHAPTER XII—GETTING IN DEEPER
“You see, Mees Kenway,” sputtered the swarthy man eagerly, “I catch the paper, here.” He rapped the Post again with his finger. “I read the Engleesh—yes. I see the notice you, the honest Kenway, have put in the paper—”
“Let me tell you, sir,” said Agnes, starting up, “all the Kenways are honest. I am not the only honest person in our family I should hope!”
Agnes was much annoyed. The excitable little foreigner spread abroad his hands again and bowed low before her.
“Please! Excuse!” he said. “I admire all your family, oh, so very much! But it is to you who put in the paper the words here, about the very ancient silver bracelet.” Again that woodpecker rapping on the Lost and Found column in the Post. “No?”
“Yes. I put the advertisement in the paper,” acknowledged Agnes, but wishing very much that she had not, or that Neale O’Neil was present at this exciting moment to help her handle the situation.
“So! I have come for it,” cried the swarthy man, as though the matter were quite settled.
But Agnes’ mind began to function pretty well again. She determined not to be “rushed.” This strange foreigner might be perfectly honest. But there was not a thing to prove that the bracelet given to Tess and Dot by the Gypsy women belonged to him.
“How do you know,” she asked, “that the bracelet we have in our possession is the one you have lost?”
“I? Oh, no, lady! I did not lose the ancient heirloom. Oh, no.”